Please visit the accompanying website: Life on Nu Phoenicis IV, the planet Furaha.
This blog is about speculative biology. Recurrent themes are biomechanics, the works of other world builders, and, of course, the planet Furaha.

Tuesday, 24 May 2016

As blog titles go, this one is not likely to win the prize for 'succinct clarity'. Actually it could, provided readers already knew what a Cthulhuoid was, what its carapax was, and why you would want to paint said carapax. To make matters worse, there formally never was a 'Digitally painting Furahan lifeforms I'. But one earlier post would in retrospect deserve that title.

What does the title mean? Well, the word 'Cthulhoid' describes a clade of marine Furahan animals that do not seem to be able to make up their minds whether they should be pelagic of benthic ('pelagic' refers to the 'just water' part of a sea or lake, not close to the bottom nor to a shore, while 'benthic' refers to the bottom of a sea or lake). Some Cthulhuoids use the tentacles close to their face -hence the name- to move around on the bottom or even create their own hiding places, while others use their fins to propel themselves through the sea. A 'carapax' (a term I prefer over 'carapace') is an animal's armour, say its shell. The cthulhuoid carapax covers the head and usually part of the back. Finally, why would you want to paint one? You, the reader, might in fact not want to do this at all, but I wanted to, to create an image for The Book.

I am not going to spoil The Book by showing major paintings here or anywhere else, but I can make an exception for part of a minor illustration. The illustration in question shows a few examples of the riotous array of colours and structures of cthulhuoid carapaces. The problem with 'riotous' colours, in stripes and spots, is that every spot must be painted in the correct shade for where it is on the object, and that includes different shades within each stripe or spot. With oil paints this proved to be a painstaking job, requiring small pointy brushes, a very steady hand and lots of patience. Digital painting has made painting such complicated objects much easier, as I will illustrate here. I will assume some familiarity with 'layers' (in digital painting, a layer is like a sheet of glass: what you paint on it covers things on underlying layers, but parts unpainted on a layer let you see underlying layers. You can paint on a layer under another layer. I use Corel Painter because it can mimic real brushes quite well.

Click to enlarge; copyright Gert van Dijk

Let's start with a suitable carapax shape. I modelled one in Vue Infinite and made a simple render in which the 3D shape is overlaid with simple lines that define contours of the shape. These help get the perspective right, in a fraction of the time that a conventional perspective construction would require. On a separate layer I drew lines with a 'brown pencil' to outline some interesting spots, aided by the lines that help keep the 3D shape in mind, and also help ensure symmetry.

Click to enlarge; copyright Gert van Dijk

The next stage uses a layer under the brown pencil one. This new layer contains the basic colour of the beast, which in this case means dark blue sides with a lighter colour down the middle. Note that I made absolutely no effort to represent shading here: the colours are supposed to be completely flat.

Click to enlarge; copyright Gert van Dijk

I then added another layer, again just under the pencil layer. On that one I painted the spots an even deep yellow colour, to contrast with the blue underpainting. Again, this is completely flat. Note that the result contain three layers: the pencil lines, the yellow spots and the blue basic colour. We will leave these layers for now and hide them from view.

Click to enlarge; copyright Gert van Dijk

Using the same Vue render as before I then painted the carapax again, but this time without colour, using just shades of grey to convey a sense of depth as well as a surface texture with same plates on it. I rather like the way the shininess turned out: the surface is shiny, but more like a pearl than like chrome. The shininess should allow the colours to remain well visible.

Click to enlarge; copyright Gert van Dijk

The trick now is to combine the flat colours with the grey layer defining the shape. There are at least two ways to do this. In the one shown above, the grey 3D layer changes the aspect of the solid colours below. There are many ways in Corel Painter or in Photoshop of making one layer affect an underlying one. It is often hard to predict what they do as their names often make limited sense. The result shown above was obtained by applying the grey '3D' layer to the underlying flat colours as 'hard light'. Not bad, is it? You may note that part of the 3D structure indicated by the grey layer is obscured by the strong colours. That is very often the case with strongly contrasting patterns.

Click to enlarge; copyright Gert van Dijk

This particular image is based on the opposite approach: the grey 3D layer was used as the underlying basis and the colour layers were moved on top of it, where they affected the grey layer through an option labelled 'colorize'. As you can see the result is not the same, which is part of the fun of digital painting: there are new options to discover daily. Of course, it may be better to stop discovering them and get to work at some point, or you will never get any work done.

Click to enlarge; copyright Gert van Dijk

Finally, I went back to the earlier version and decided to change the colours on the flat colour layers, which only takes an instant. The blue basic colour became solid yellow, and the yellow spots turned black. The grey layer is again used to provide a 3D aspect to the carapax, but this time I turned down the 'hard light' effect so the highlights are less conspicuous. I then added two shiny spots with fairly sharp edges to get a surface effect like porcelain. On yet another layer I painted flat white regions at the edges of the carapax. These were then made almost entirely transparent to represent reflections of lighter objects in the vicinity. I present this version here to show that separating colour and structure allows for some quick experiments. It is not the way I paint most often though: usually I paint shadows directly, using appropriate colours.

To paint other shells I did not use this method, as I thought that using the same outline every time would make the result boring. Instead, I designed and painted a new shell from scratch each time.

And there you are; a painted cthulhuoid carapax. The illustration should end up as probably about two by two cm, so it will be small. This particular carapax belongs to the species Myrmillo testudiformis, or in common speech the 'turtleback snigel'. Such shells are collector's items, by the way.

Friday, 6 May 2016

This post is about two fairly new books by Terryl Whitlatch, both with 'creature design' in the title: one is 'Principles of CD', and the other is 'Science of CD'. I have kept an eye on her work since I posted about the wildlife of the Star Wars universe, back in 2011. I expressed my admiration for her technical skills, but had a few reservation on other matters, and wondered whether or not I would feel different this time. When a book on creature design comes out with 'science' in the title, it will definitely get my attention. So, is the title correct and is there science in there? Well, yes. And maybe no.

The 'yes' part of the answer concerns animal anatomy. 'Understanding animal anatomy' is in fact the subtitle of the book. The book does cover the subject, by presenting many animal species three times: one as a drawing of its skeleton, one with muscles attached, and one with skin, hair, flukes, etc. The book is strongest on mammals, although there fish, amphibians and dinosaurs as well. However, anatomy is presented from the artistic viewpoint only, so do not expect joint design principles, biomechanics or similar matters: that's not what it's for. The drawings are excellent, as always. There are several extinct mammals in there, that are all very convincing as impressions of what these animals could have looked like. I wish Ms Whitlatch would illustrate a book on extinct mammals: it would be wonderful.

Click to enlarge; copyright Design Studio Press

Here is an example of her work at its very best. This is a Diplocaulus, an early amphibian with an odd head. What Ms Whitlatch has done is to have the animal float immobile in some pond or lake, completely submerged. In doing so she immediately evokes a newt, which I think shows genius.

Click to enlarge; copyright Design Studio Press

The 'maybe no' part has to do with imagining new animals. In these books, most fall into the fantasy or mythology category, combining bits of one animal with bits of another. That is not something I distilled from the animals, but something stated in the books: the donor animals providing the original parts for the new chimaera are usually named in the book. The results can be fascinating to look at, although my impression was that the result is much more about the effect on the viewer than about creating a viable animal. The dog/fish hybrid shown above is an example: it is funny to look at, but does not make much sense as an animal.

Click to enlarge; copyright Design Studio Press

I discussed this particular design before, but as it is in the new books as well, I will show it again. It shows the common theme of doubling or tripling front legs if you need an animal with three or more pairs of legs. It is apparently hard for illustrators to come up with something else (see my earlier posts on Barsoom animals or Avatar's hexapods). In common with these forerunners, this animal's legs are placed very close together resulting in little, well, leg room.

Creature design in games and in Hollywood seems to have very little
respect for biological plausibility, something I have discussed several
times in the blog, with irritation as well as sadness. I used to think
that this was simply a sign of the complete indifference Hollywood has
towards facts of any nature, regardless of whether the facts have to do
with history, astronomy or biology. But over time the discussions by
readers in this blog made me change my mind. I expect that there is
purpose behind the negation of facts. I expect the people high up, who
make such choices, to be fully aware of what their audience prefers, and
that is close to what they know already. The artists and experts might
wish to go much further, but might be reined in lest as otherwise the
audience might be dragged from their comfort zone. Of course, by never
challenging the expectations much the whole process becomes
self-fulfilling...

Click to enlarge; copyright Design Studio Press

Back to the books; here is a similar design, this time for an animal with seven pairs of legs. I like the smooth progression of the phase of the movement. However, once again we see that the front pair is copied: there are no less than six 'front' legs, leaving just one other design for the hind legs. The legs are again close together and their musculature seems suitable for such an animal with just four legs, rather than fourteen. Perhaps you argue that the creature belongs on a world with high gravity requiring lots of stout legs, but the tail design does not fit with a high gravity (it is a long unsupported structure that would need much force and appropriate skeletal adaptations to keep it horizontal and there aren't any: the spines point downwards, not upwards where you would attach ligaments to keep the tail suspended).

Click to enlarge; copyright Design Studio Press

Finally, here is another one in which mixing animals magically has its disadvantages (I am to blame for the parts of the image being cut off; the book did not fit in my scanner). Its head looks like a ceratopsian's with mammoth tusks attached. Spectacular, yes; but wouldn't the tusks be in the way when the animal tries to reach food with its beak? Actually, the part that drew my attention initially was the elbow joint of the front legs, correctly placed at the height of the underside of the body. That angular form really conveys a big elephantine shape very convincingly.

In conclusion, the books show many excellent drawings. They represent some of the best of this particular school of 'creature design', involving people mixing various Earth animals together. This makes their shapes 'natural', and in turn this makes them instinctively believable. However, for anyone with a trained eye, the mixture also abolishes any notion that the animals might have evolved biologically. It may be just me, but that effect detracts from their believability. I can suspend disbelief as well as the next person and so enjoy these creatures very much; but I generally prefer designs that evoke an evolutionary rather than a mythological background.

-------------------------Will I take up blogging again? Maybe; I will write the occasional post, but still think it is better to devote the time I have for The Book. It is progressing steadily and has sixty pages completely ready (if you ever write a book, do just that and write it; do not paint a book). I will keep you informed every now and then. Here is a titbit: mixomorphs are now haplodiplontic beings in which both stages are complex multicellular lifeforms, albeit different ones...